Inflation and the cost of living.

The point I was trying to make was that any comparison between re;lative prices like this one is bound to fail. The price of all goods float up and down at the whim of demand, markets, weather and disease.

This why governments draw up indices like the CPI and RPI. Over years the contents of the basket of goods that make up the indices has chaned as has the weighting given to different items to reflect changing domestic shopping habits.

Yes, a Freddo, would indeed make an ideal subject for a study of shrinkflation. In fact almost any chocolate bar or sweet would. It does, however, shed a light on the life phase the lecturer was living in - the child rearing age, even the small child rearing phase. The number of adults that regulalry eat Freddos, must be uite small.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202603/medium-cergsp-old-potatoes-chart.png https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202603/medium-fxkckn-ons-sweets-and-chocolate.png

Why not include those things in CPI? They are consumer products whatever judgement calls some might make about necessity. People take holidays, stream TV and don’t always want to cook after a long day at work.

And, of course, CPI runs lower than RPI as it excludes housing costs and council tax, the two biggest costs for most households. Although I don’t mind paying CT, it is my own largest annual cost even with single occupancy discount. It’s more than I spend on groceries in a year and more than 2.5 times what I spend on energy.

I agree that chocolate isn’t a good yardstick as cocoa prices have rocketed in recent years due to climate change, disease and global political problems. More recently, wholesale cocoa prices have reduced but any UPF is going to be affected by other factors not least the cost of raw ingredients that have to be imported, transport costs, taxes. Wrappings made from aluminium and petrochemicals are expensive to produce. Then there’s the amount of energy used to produce UPFs and household products in general.

I used to watch the BBC’s Inside the Factory. Past series with Gregg Wallace have now been removed from iPlayer which is understandable but means they can no longer be watched. Remember when the price of tinned foods and toilet paper rocketed? Energy prices and raw materials.

China was buying up as much aluminium as it could as it geared up to reopening manufacturing post-pandemic. The wholesale price went sky high as a result and was reflected in the price of tinned soup, baked beans etc.

I agree with M0nica. Potatoes are far more nutritious and a good source of slow-release energy ... and inexpensive.

ONS publish helpful charts showing the price of old white potatoes and sweets and chocolate over time. Prices fluctuate but a year ago potato prices were lower than they were ten year before whereas the price of sweets and chocolate was much higher.

A baking potato costing 20p and taking no more than 12 minutes to cook (6 minutes each in the microwave then the airfryer to crisp the skin, a salad side and that's lunch for about 50p. A single Freddo costs 45p £25 (yes, pounds) a kg versus a humble spud 79p a kg.

Freddos were the example used by academics when my son studied Economics. Nothing to do with crop failures but shrinkflation. He’s 35 now, so it was over 15 years ago. .

I remember little bars of chocolate about the same size as a Freddo - they were 3d - no minimum wage, but average Saturday (7 hrs) would be £1.50, so about 17?

Chocolate crops have failed and prices shot up, not to mention fair trade, so perhaps not a great example. However, basic jam has gone from 26p to 49p in just 2 years, and the plastic bread to go with has gone from 28 to 55p, not much far off double.

David49

I've no idea about Freddos but the cost of food is much cheaper than in the past in, 1988 on minimum wage it took 7 hours work, now it takes 5.5 hours for the same basket. It's housing and fuel costs that have escalated along with all the discretionary purchases that are rightly or wrongly included in the CPI. Air Fares, Sky TV, Take aways, delivery and many others.

I uite agree.

I've no idea about Freddos but the cost of food is much cheaper than in the past in, 1988 on minimum wage it took 7 hours work, now it takes 5.5 hours for the same basket. It's housing and fuel costs that have escalated along with all the discretionary purchases that are rightly or wrongly included in the CPI. Air Fares, Sky TV, Take aways, delivery and many others.

sixandahalf

M0nica

Freddos are not a good comparison. The price of coco beans reuired to make chocolate has spiralled in the last year. The price of cocoa uadrupled last year, although it has dropped a bit because of poor harvests and disease.

You would be better off comparing the minimum wage with a product which is grown and processed in the UK. Potatoes for example. The price of potatoes has increased by only 75% since 2005 (RPI: Ave price - Potatoes, new loose, per Kg).

In 2005 the minimum hourly wage would buy less than 6kgs of potatoes. At the end of last year it would buy 8kgs.

So that is a positive movement in relative prices - and potatoes are so much healthier to eat than poor uality chocolate bars.

Please, really we are supposed to be uplifted by the price of a bag of spuds?

Why not? They are a good nutritious food stuff, which can be cooked in many different ways and incorporated into so many other dishes. It can be grown as a mjor crop in the UK. It can be distilled to make vodka.

Freddo is a chocolate sweet, whose main ingredient is sugar and contains palm oil and shea butter, origin unknown. Most of the ingredients are imported from other countries.

From every point of view the potato is the superior product. It is homegrown, infinitely flexible in its use. Who can resist a toasted potatocake slathered in melting butter, or you can fry the cakes in bacon fat with a cooked breakfast. mashed with cheese on a shepherds pie, bought at a Firework event, when its cold and wet and you clutch your hot baked potato in your hand for 5 or 10 minutes to benefit from its warmth before eating it.

What can you do with a Freddo? Eat it - and its gone in barely 15 seconds.

To add insult to injury we have events brought about by another country that have resulted in the price of oil topping 100$ a barrel today, and being heated by oil as we don't have gas in certain parts of Devon, we've just checked the price to refill the tank. It's exactly half as much again as this time last year!

No problem today filling up at my local petrol station in Somerset.

@Allira 🤣

ferry23

Our garden waste collection - 105 a year, the letter with the cost for next year arrived yesterday, I need to be in the right headspace to open it ☹️

We haven't had our renewal notice yet, but last year it was £72 - it was £49 when we started (at the beginning of lockdown, when we realised we had a lot of pruning to do & were unable to get to the tip); we've already decided that we're not going to renew again this time

Totally agreewith you. Now this war with Iran that Trump has caused..The price of everything isgoing rocket!

Freddos don't have to be a good comparison.
They just make a points -well about wages and Shrinkflation.
Potatoes are a comparison that looks more positive- but now we virtuously eat the organic vegan ones (yes they do advertise them as that!) available from the 20 miles away farm shop they aren’t cheap.

M0nica

Freddos are not a good comparison. The price of coco beans reuired to make chocolate has spiralled in the last year. The price of cocoa uadrupled last year, although it has dropped a bit because of poor harvests and disease.

You would be better off comparing the minimum wage with a product which is grown and processed in the UK. Potatoes for example. The price of potatoes has increased by only 75% since 2005 (RPI: Ave price - Potatoes, new loose, per Kg).

In 2005 the minimum hourly wage would buy less than 6kgs of potatoes. At the end of last year it would buy 8kgs.

So that is a positive movement in relative prices - and potatoes are so much healthier to eat than poor uality chocolate bars.

Please, really we are supposed to be uplifted by the price of a bag of spuds?

In my day inflation was measured in Mars Bars. I assume they are so much smaller now and the chocolate coating so much thinner that it is no longer possible to make a valid comparison.

The Freddos were used as a symbol of shrinkflation - yes, they are teeny now, and cost lots more than when my son was a child.

Freddos are not a good comparison. The price of coco beans reuired to make chocolate has spiralled in the last year. The price of cocoa uadrupled last year, although it has dropped a bit because of poor harvests and disease.

You're completely contradicting the BBC news article I linked to, MOnica

Freddos are not a good comparison. The price of coco beans reuired to make chocolate has spiralled in the last year. The price of cocoa uadrupled last year, although it has dropped a bit because of poor harvests and disease.

You would be better off comparing the minimum wage with a product which is grown and processed in the UK. Potatoes for example. The price of potatoes has increased by only 75% since 2005 (RPI: Ave price - Potatoes, new loose, per Kg).

In 2005 the minimum hourly wage would buy less than 6kgs of potatoes. At the end of last year it would buy 8kgs.

So that is a positive movement in relative prices - and potatoes are so much healthier to eat than poor uality chocolate bars.

The price ofmy weekly groceries (Ocado) have gone up substantially over the past couple of years. I'm not buying any more processed food or ready meals, it seems to creep up and up. I've bought myself a small pressure cooker and plan to cook more cheap meat and pulses - fortunately we both love stews and curries.
When I look in my cupboards and fridges I find I have more jars and packs of herbs, spices and flavourings: tarpenade, chilli paste, pesto and others - all of them expensive and probably not things I used to buy.

Hmm. Those shrinking chocolate bars...

There's a sad piece on the BBC website today about the plight of Ghanaian cocoa growers. The price for cocoa has dropped considerably. Ghana is a major producer of cocoa and it accounts for about 70% of its exports. both its economy and the cocoa growers are suffering.

The reason the price has dropped is not only because harvests have been better in the 2 years since the prices rose sharply, but also because demand for cocoa has dropped because manufacturers have been making their chocolate bars smaller 😱

A bit ironic, isn't it?

Still. I'm sure our waistlines are all the better for it. 😆

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93jdk1yy3zo

fancythat - I think we will have a change of government soon but that it will be Reform governing & I dread to think what that will bring.

I nearly treated myself to a standard sized Daim bar on Saturday, until I realised it was £1.10 😬 I left it on principle

Babamaman

I bet the Freddy’s have got smaller as well!

They're just chocolate tadpoles now.

I bet the Freddy’s have got smaller as well!

Doodledog

My son studied Economics and used to go on about Freddos, so he gets a bag of them every Christmas and birthday .

His birthday was recently and DIL asked about the Freddos, and son had forgotten the rationale - he thought it was because he liked them as a child. It's funny how these family traditions lose their original meaning, isn't it?

How sad that inflation and the cost of living seem to have hit even the Freddo fairy - shall we organise a whip round?